Watching for Comets

Interlude II

 "Epsilon!" reverberated throughout the entire house when Julia arrived at the back door on schedule at precisely three o'clock.

"JU-LI-A," I called back at an equally, obnoxiously loud volume, as I was within viewing distance right at the kitchen table. She grinned and kicked off her shoes and socks before coming in.

"Good afternoon, Julia," the nanny greeted her more politely. "Would you like a snack?" She gestured at the spread of vegetables and hummus on the table.

"Yes, please," Julia answered, taking a seat next to me. The nanny brought her a glass of juice. As we munched on carrots and cucumber, she told me all about fourth grade at public school. None of it was positive. As soon as we stuffed our faces, we announced that we were going to play outside. In retrospect, the hours from three to six must have been the nanny's favorite time of day; all she had to do was sit on the back porch and chill out, casually glancing up at us now and again to make sure we were within sight of the house and hadn't gotten kidnapped or injured.

Before we disappeared out the back door, there was one more step to take.

"Did Mom and Dad leave an ice cream task, Miss Kelly?" I asked the nanny. She handed us a clipboard adorned with a piece of paper from where it had been waiting on the counter.

"What's at stake?" Julia asked.

"Drumsticks," I answered, and her frown turned into a conspiratorial grin. At first she thought it dumb to do a worksheet to earn ice cream, but then she learned that my parents wouldn't argue with a completed assignment. The first time she refused to eat her vegetables when staying over for dinner – she really hated green beans, for which I didn't blame her – and my parents gave us dessert anyway because we had completed our worksheet, she treated it like she had found a way to subvert the system. Which was ironic, because it was exactly the system my parents had set in place.

As we stepped out onto the porch, Julia read the first question out loud. "'Estimate the dimensions of the first floor without using a tape measure or ruler.' What? How are we supposed to do that?"

My mind was already churning with ideas. I stood up straight and held out my arms. "Like this," I said. "The distance between our fingertips with our arms held out straight is approximately the same as our height. We can stand against the house and fold ourselves over, all the way around."

Julia wouldn't take my word for it. "How do you know that?"

I shrugged. "I heard it somewhere." It was the same answer I always gave, and it never satisfied her. She seemed to think I magically knew things, when I learned them the same way everybody else did – by paying attention. Or so I thought.

"Prove it."

"We're the same height. Lie down and I'll measure."

She looked around for a good place to lie down, apparently unsatisfied with the middle of the porch. As her eyes landed on the railing, she gave a shout of excitement. She lay down right next to the railing and counted out how many balusters were between the top of her head and her feet. She complained about not being as smart as me, but she was probably the only student in her class who knew the word "baluster."

I stood up against the same piece of railing. Visually, the lengths appeared to be equal, but we counted the distance in balusters between my fingertips just in case. The same number.

Julia jumped to her feet – bare, since she hadn't bothered to put her shoes back on – and pressed herself against the back of the house, arms outstretched. I did the same, lining up next to her.

"And, since we're the same height, it'll be easier to add up," she commented. "We just have to multiply all the measurements by two."

And so, we performed our silly-looking dance around the house, folding ourselves one after the other, making adjustments as necessary when we ran into the rose bushes and basement window wells. We had to restart a few times because we were laughing so hard.

A few hours later, when my parents came home from work, we proudly showed off our completed worksheet and dirt-covered pant legs. Julia and I waited patiently as Dad scanned through our answers. As I got older, I realized he wasn't checking that they were all correct from some store of infinite knowledge in his brain, just that our answers were reasonable enough to show that we had done the work.

"Well done, kids," he announced, and added it to the pile. "We were thinking about going out to dinner tonight. What do you think? Your parents are welcome to come too, Julia."

"Where are we going?" I asked as she bobbed her head eagerly.

"Sushi," Dad answered, and didn't flinch when I groaned. He ruffled my hair. "You love fish, Epsilon."

"Cooked fish." I pouted, but didn't protest further. Julia was looking excited enough for the both of us. When she called her house for permission to join us, her parents declined the invitation themselves but graciously accepted the free babysitting.

"I'd like you both to change out of those dirty jeans before we go, though," Mom cut in, gesturing to our soiled cuffs. "Epsilon, why don't you find Julia some clean pants to lend her?"

"Okay, Mom." I took Julia's hand and we tromped up the stairs.

"And wash your feet!" Mom called after us, as she did every evening.

As Julia and I picked through my dresser drawer, I could hear my parents discussing how I had done on my schoolwork for the day with Miss Kelly. She always sounded so impressed, which at the time I didn't understand, because I didn't do anything special – I just followed the directions and paid attention and asked Miss Kelly to explain when I didn't understand something. She told me a lot of people still didn't understand things even after it was explained to them, but I found that hard to believe as well, seeing how well she explained things. When I told her this, she blushed and thanked me and told me I was very kind, but for once didn't actually answer the question.

"Epsilon, can I borrow one of your shirts, too?" Julia's question cut through my thoughts. She was holding up a green t-shirt with the Wild Kratts on the front.

"Sure," I granted, thinking nothing of it. After all, the pink, frilly blouse that her parents had put her in this morning wouldn't go with the khaki cargo pants she had already selected from my dresser.

"Thank you! You're the best!" After giving me a quick hug, she dashed off to the bathroom to change.

When we came back downstairs, my mom took one look at us and proclaimed, "Aren't you just two peas in a pod!"

Julia grinned. "Yep! Even though nobody believes me."

Mom stopped whatever she was doing and instantly shifted her full attention. "What do you mean by that, Julia?" I was equally as interested, but my reaction speed hadn't been as quick.

"Nobody at school believes I have a best friend named Epsilon. They said that's not a name, so I must be making it up." She turned to me, looking me straight in the eye. "I like your name."

I blinked back at her, not sure how to respond to that. Her pronouncements always took me by surprise with their conviction. "I-I like your name, too," I offered.

"Well, I hate it!" Case in point. "Wendy, if Epsilon had been a girl, what would you have named him?—Her."

Mom and Dad looked at each other, seriously debating. "Alpha?" Dad suggested.

Mom looked unsure. "Would that sound like we're trying too hard to subvert gender roles?"

Seemingly convinced, Dad stroked his beard and thought again. "Omega? Delta?"

"Delta!" Mom snapped her fingers. "I like it. Change."